SimpleReq

SimpleReq is a simple requests library for Ruby.

By simple, I mean that you can get what you need done, without more complicated features such as headers, cookies, etc.

I apologize if you were looking for those features, but SimpleReq does not have them. I may consider adding them in the future. Maybe...

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'simplereq'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install simplereq

Usage

Using SimpleReq can be as simple as:

request = SimpleReq.get('https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/get')
request.body
# => "<!DOCTYPE HTML><html>...</html>"
request.code
# => 200

Get

SimpleReq.get() returns an object that can be interacted with by .body and .code. .body returns a string of the HTML document, and .code returns a integer of the HTTP response code.

You can also pass a Hash to the get method

SimpleReq.get('https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/get_args), {arg1: 'argument_one', arg2: 'argument_two'}`)

Which will instead get https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/get_args?arg1=argument1&arg2=argument_two

Post

SimpleReq also supports posting data to web pages as well.

request = SimpleReq.post('https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/post', {arg1: 'argument_one', arg2: 'argument_two'})

This will return the same way as SimpleReq.get, except it will show the page as it would with the data posted.

Get Json

SimpleReq also has the ability to get json data and return it as a Hash/Array of the data.

j_get once again has the ability to be passed arguments, just like get.

SimpleReq.j_get('https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/j_get')
# => {"success" => "'got' web data"}

SimpleReq.j_get('https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/j_get_args', {arg1: 'argument_one', arg2: 'argument_two'})
# => {"arg1" => "argument_one", "arg2" => "argument_two"}

Post Json

As with get, j_get also has a post counterpart. SimpleReq.j_post(https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/j_post', {arg1: 'argument_one', arg2: 'argument_two'}) will return the same data as the j_get version.

Get Element

Another feature of SimpleReq is it's ability to fetch only a single element of the page by CSS selector (#id, .class, or tag).

request = SimpleReq.get_el('https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/get_el', '#p2')
request.inner_html
# => "This is p2"
request
# => <p id="p2">This is p2</p>

Adding arguments to get_el will be handled the same way as with get. SimpleReq.get_el(url, 'element', {arg: 'val'})

Each element is returned as an Array or elements. When using get_el(url).inner_html, if there are multiple of the same elements, they will be stitched together into a single string.

Post Element

This feature, of course, allows you to post data to a web page, and grab a single element.

request = SimpleReq.post_el('https://redxtech.ca/test/simplereq/post_el', '#p2', {"#p2" => 'id = p2'})
request.inner_html
# => "id = p2"

Future...

One of my plans it to work on making SimpleReq independent from rest-client. I was able to use pure Ruby without any gems to make http requests, but something on my machine prevented it from being able to make https requests. It was working on my linux machines, but not my windows ones, so I decided to make it work fully with everything instead of being dependent on OS.

I plan to add more features in the future, so any suggestions are welcomed. Keep in mind that I do wish to keep it simple.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/RedXTech/SimpleReq.

simplereq

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